North Africa

Tunisian Parliamentary VP Abdelfattah Mourou said that the Arab nation is backward, ignorant, and "oblivious to reality," comparing it to the West, which managed to overcome its hostilities after WWII and form the nucleus for the European community. This is driven by "the power o...

Booker Ngesa Omole, National Organizing Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Kenya, said during an Al-Quds Day event held in the country that "if there is a possibility... we will join [the Palestinians] in the battlefield, to fight to reclaim their motherland." Omole call...

Paris-based Tunisian philosopher Youssef Seddik, interviewed on Al-Hurra TV on June 13, said that "since the death of the Prophet Muhammad and to this day, our history has been a pack of lies." He discussed the incompatibility of the Quran with modern man-made laws, saying that t...

On May 1, 2018, Morocco announced it was severing relations with Iran on the grounds that it and Hizbullah were aiding the Polisario, a movement acting to establish an independent state in the Western Sahara, in territory claimed by Morocco.[1] In a press conference, Morocca...

Algerian intellectual Dr. Rachid Benaïssa, former Education Ministry director-general, said that "Islam is returning today, and tomorrow the West will convert to Islam." Speaking on the Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel on March 29, Dr. Benaïssa, who was presented on the show as "a fo...

Tunisian poet Anis Shoshan, interviewed on Sudania 24 TV, discussed notions of citizenship and human rights, and said that while in Arab societies we are taught "to be passive, not to think, but to follow obsolete customs," there is a new generation that is educated and aware of ...

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
In Issue 130 of Al-Naba', the weekly newspaper of the Islamic State (ISIS), the group claimed that its soldiers had k...

French-Tunisian Imam Hassen Chalghoumi spoke out against political Islam, saying that takfir (accusing others of heresy) "is a part of the Islamic nation and the Arab world" and that ISIS emerged "from our own countries, from among our sons." Chalghoumi, who is the imam of the Dr...

"Russia In The World" is a MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project review of Russia's geopolitical interests and areas of penetration. This installment will deal with Russia's relations with African countries.
The original image was taken from Studiya 13's Facebook page.
Russ...

Moroccan author and researcher Abdelilah Belkziz said that contrary to the "common narrative" that the Jihadi movements were created by America and the West, these Jihadi groups are a "local product," created by our educational system and political culture, "which is based on exc...

In a December 8, 2017 Friday sermon at the Islamic Center of Tennessee in Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, Somali-American Imam Ahmedulhadi Sharif criticized terror attacks in the West, such as the October 2017 vehicular attack in Manhattan, saying that they "take...

In a recent Friday sermon in a mosque in Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, Somali-American Imam Ahmedulhadi Sharif criticized those who carry out terror attacks in the West, such as the October 2017 vehicular attack in Manhattan, saying that they "take innocent liv...

Moroccan journalist and writer Ahmed Assid said that "we must reach the level of openness and sincerity that enables us to say that some texts should be nullified and completely abandoned because they are religious texts that pertain to a certain context which no longer exists an...

Tunisians protested at the opening of a Holocaust exhibition at the National Library in Tunis, tearing down posters and chanting slogans such as "Free Palestine, out with the Zionists." Tunisian University Professor Habib Kazdaghli, the exhibition's organizer, said that the purpo...

Tunisians protested at the opening of a Holocaust exhibition at the National Library in Tunis, tearing down posters and chanting slogans such as "Free Palestine, out with the Zionists." Tunisian University Professor Habib Kazdaghli, the exhibition's organizer, said that the purpo...

Russia This Week is a weekly review by the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project, covering the latest Russia-related news and analysis from media in Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Cartoon Of The Week
Russia, Iran and Turkey make order in Syr...

Algerian historian Dr. Nasser Al-Din Saidouni said that the Arab peoples, still in a "tribal" stage, have not been able to obtain the "internal stimuli" necessary to create a true renaissance, but instead "borrow European enterprises, imagining that they would save us and make us...

The fate of Mauritanian blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir, whose death sentence for affronting the Prophet Muhammad was commuted to two years in prison after he repented, continues to inflame public sentiment. In a France 24 TV debate, which aired on November 13, Mauritanian p...

Abdelfattah Mourou, Vice-President of the Tunisian Parliament and the co-founder of the Ennahdha Party, talked about the mistakes made by the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that they did not understand that the people who rebelled in the Arab Spring did not do so in order to instate ...

During a TV debate on conspiracy theories, Algerian political analyst Reda Boudraa said that great Arab and Muslim minds were "contemplating how to dismantle the global system" and that the notion of conspiracy should be used as a strategic weapon. We should "conspire against [th...

In an article published August 10, 2017 in the Algerian daily Al-Shurouq, journalist Sultan Barkani wrote that the Muslims' dispute with the Jews is religious rather than political. He stated that the Jews have been plotting against the Muslims since the days of the Prophet Muham...

Sudanese strategic expert Major-General Younis Mahmoud said that there is evidence in the Quran that "these Jews, these Zionists, never adhere to treaties" and that "the handiwork of the Jews and the Zionists" can be seen in today's problems. He was responding to comments made by...

In recent weeks there has been a heated debate in Sudan regarding normalizing relations with Israel. The debate was sparked by Sudanese Investment Minister Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, who stated, in an August 21, 2017 interview on Sudania 24 TV, that normalization with Israel coul...

Introduction
The attacks carried out in the name of Islam by terror organizations such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, both in Arab countries and worldwide, have prompted recurring discussion about whether and how the school curricula in the Arab world have contribu...

On April 3, 2017, representatives of the recently-formed National Coordination of Moroccan Christians met with the chair of Morocco's National Human Rights Council (CNDH) to express their demand for full civil rights. Four days later they sent a letter to Moroccan Prime Minister ...

Saudi Ambassador to Algeria Dr. Sami Abdullah Al-Saleh said that Hamas is a terrorist organization. In an interview dedicated almost entirely to the Qatar crisis, Ambassador Al-Saleh said that the only available option is for Qatar to accept all of demands made by Saudi Arabia an...

After Tunisian-born French Jewish comedian Michel Boujenah was invited to perform at the International Festival of Carthage, a music festival held every summer in the city, Tunisian activists identified with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement demanded to exclude...

Following the vehicular attack outside a London mosque on June 19, Egyptian TV host Youssef Al-Husseini said: "Why do they hate us?! If they didn't, there would be something mentally wrong with them." Claiming that the Muslims have contributed nothing to the West except slaughter...

In a February 10 Al-Jazeera interview, former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki tackled the root causes of backwardness in Arab society, saying that what was needed was "an ideological revolution before a political one" in order to abandon the mindset of tribalism, which viewed ...

Introduction
In January 2015, MEMRI researched and flagged YouTube videos of support for jihadi fighters and "martyrs" and "martyrdom," to test the platform's "Promotes Terrorism" flagging feature. The test was a follow-up to MEMRI research and testing of jihad and terrorism o...

Malek Chebel, a renowned anthropologist and one of the most prominent contemporary North African intellectuals, died on November 12, 2016. Chebel, who in 2004 established the Foundation for an Enlightened Islam in France, published some 20 books on Islam, in which he addressed ma...

On May 20-22, 2016, the Tunisian Al-Nahda party held its tenth national convention, at which it reelected Rached Al-Ghannouchi as its head and ratified his vision for a change in the party's orientation. In an interview with the French Le Monde daily on the eve of the convention,...

As part of a recent government reshuffle in France, professional technocrat Audrey Azoulay, a former culture advisor to French President Fran├ºois Hollande and former director of the National Center of Cinematography, was appointed as France's Minister of Culture and Communicatio...

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Following the deadly March 18, 2015 attack at the Bardo National Museum in Tunisia, in which 17 tourists and tw...

Introduction
On January 5, 2015, recently elected President of the Tunisian Republic Beji Caid Essebsi handed the letter of appointment to Habib Essid to form the next government in compliance with the provisions of Tunisia's Constitution. Essid has been officially appointed to f...

In
response to the publication of the latest issue of the French satirical weekly Charlie
Hebdo featuring another cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover, a week
after the January 7, 2015 terrorist attack on its offices in which 12 of its
staff were murdered by Cherif and ...

On May 1, 2018, Morocco announced it was severing relations with Iran on the grounds that it and Hizbullah were aiding the Polisario, a movement acting to establish an independent state in the Western Sahara, in territory claimed by Morocco.[1] In a press conference, Morocca...

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
In Issue 130 of Al-Naba', the weekly newspaper of the Islamic State (ISIS), the group claimed that its soldiers had k...

French-Tunisian Imam Hassen Chalghoumi spoke out against political Islam, saying that takfir (accusing others of heresy) "is a part of the Islamic nation and the Arab world" and that ISIS emerged "from our own countries, from among our sons." Chalghoumi, who is the imam of the Dr...

"Russia In The World" is a MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project review of Russia's geopolitical interests and areas of penetration. This installment will deal with Russia's relations with African countries.
The original image was taken from Studiya 13's Facebook page.
Russ...

In a December 8, 2017 Friday sermon at the Islamic Center of Tennessee in Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, Somali-American Imam Ahmedulhadi Sharif criticized terror attacks in the West, such as the October 2017 vehicular attack in Manhattan, saying that they "take...

Tunisians protested at the opening of a Holocaust exhibition at the National Library in Tunis, tearing down posters and chanting slogans such as "Free Palestine, out with the Zionists." Tunisian University Professor Habib Kazdaghli, the exhibition's organizer, said that the purpo...

Russia This Week is a weekly review by the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project, covering the latest Russia-related news and analysis from media in Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Cartoon Of The Week
Russia, Iran and Turkey make order in Syr...

In an article published August 10, 2017 in the Algerian daily Al-Shurouq, journalist Sultan Barkani wrote that the Muslims' dispute with the Jews is religious rather than political. He stated that the Jews have been plotting against the Muslims since the days of the Prophet Muham...

In recent weeks there has been a heated debate in Sudan regarding normalizing relations with Israel. The debate was sparked by Sudanese Investment Minister Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi, who stated, in an August 21, 2017 interview on Sudania 24 TV, that normalization with Israel coul...

On April 3, 2017, representatives of the recently-formed National Coordination of Moroccan Christians met with the chair of Morocco's National Human Rights Council (CNDH) to express their demand for full civil rights. Four days later they sent a letter to Moroccan Prime Minister ...

After Tunisian-born French Jewish comedian Michel Boujenah was invited to perform at the International Festival of Carthage, a music festival held every summer in the city, Tunisian activists identified with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement demanded to exclude...

On May 20-22, 2016, the Tunisian Al-Nahda party held its tenth national convention, at which it reelected Rached Al-Ghannouchi as its head and ratified his vision for a change in the party's orientation. In an interview with the French Le Monde daily on the eve of the convention,...

As part of a recent government reshuffle in France, professional technocrat Audrey Azoulay, a former culture advisor to French President Fran├ºois Hollande and former director of the National Center of Cinematography, was appointed as France's Minister of Culture and Communicatio...

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.
Following the deadly March 18, 2015 attack at the Bardo National Museum in Tunisia, in which 17 tourists and tw...

In
response to the publication of the latest issue of the French satirical weekly Charlie
Hebdo featuring another cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover, a week
after the January 7, 2015 terrorist attack on its offices in which 12 of its
staff were murdered by Cherif and ...

In a June 14, 2014 statement, Abu Iyadh Al-Tunsi, the leader of Ansar Al-Shari'a in Tunisia, congratulates the Muslim nation on the recent victories of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq, and calls to use these victories to unite the global jihad movement. More sp...

A public debate recently raged in Tunisia over the permission given to Jews from Israel to visit the El Ghriba synagogue on Djerba Island in southeast Tunisia for the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer, which fell this year on May 17.[1] This arrangement was in effect before Tunisia's ...

A public debate is currently raging in Tunisia over the unwritten permission given to Jews from Israel to visit the El Ghriba synagogue on Djerba Island in southeast Tunisia for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer, which falls this year on May 17. This arrangement was in ef...

On March 14, 2014, a delegation of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), led by its secretary-general Bilal Ag Acherif, met in Moscow with Mikhail Bognarov, Russian deputy minister of foreign affairs and special envoy for Africa and the Middle East. The deleg...

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki recently visited an exhibition of Tunisian synagogues. The following are excerpts from the visit, which was posted on the Internet on March 16, 2014: Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV Jewish Community Leader: "Mr. President, ladies and ...

The following are excerpts from a sermon delivered by Sudanese cleric Muhammad Ali Al-Jazouli, which was posted on the Internet on January 31, 2014: Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV Muhammad Ali Al-Jazouli: "Allah said: 'Fight them until there is no more strike and Alla...

The appointment of Mehdi Jomaa, Tunisia's new caretaker prime minister, is meant to guide the country out of political deadlock, as Tunisian political life has been paralyzed since the July 25, 2013 assassination of MP Mohamed Brahmi,[1] founder and former leader of the left-wing...

Following are excerpts from a statement made by Yamina Thabet, head of the Tunisian Association for Support of Minorities, which was posted on the Internet on October 2, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV: Yamina Thabet: "We were told that there were many violent inc...

The Tunisian daily Al-Haqaiq's September 11, 2013 editorial, on the 9/11 attacks, harshly criticized those in the Arab and Islamic world who continue to justify suicide bombings on various pretexts and to claim that 9/11 was a Zionist-American plot against Islam. The piece, writt...

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, which aired on Khartoum TV and was posted on the Internet on July 23, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Omar Al-Bashir: "The first ten days of Ramadhan – the days of compassion –...

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered at a session of the Tunisian Constituent Assembly by MP Rabiaa Najlaoui. The speech aired on Tunisia Al-Wataniyya 1 TV and was posted on the Internet on July 8, 2013: Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Rabiaa Najlaoui: "...

Following are excerpts from an address delivered by Sheikh Kamel Zarouq, a member of Ansar Al-Sharia in Tunisia, which was posted on the Internet on April 30, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Sheikh Kamel Zarouq: "I would like to declare loud and clear that the ...

Following are excerpts from footage of protests held in Bizerte, Tunisia, against the government’s decision to shut down Koranic kindergartens. Speakers at the protest threatened that they would "force America to bow down" before them and that they would "raise the Black Standar...

On May 19, 2013, the third annual Ansar Al-Shari'a conference is to be held in the Tunisian city of Al-Qayrawan, with an expected attendance of over 40,000 – despite the fact that the Tunisian government has banned the conference, on the grounds that the organizer, Ansar Al-Shar...

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered by Sheik Abd Al-Jalil Al-Karouri, which aired on April 19, 2013:
Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV.
Abd Al-Jalil Al-Karouri: "The most important political events of the week were the Boston earthquake and the ...

Following are excerpts from an interview with French-Tunisian Imam Hassan Chalghoumi, which aired on France 24 Arabic TV on March 12, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Interviewer: "What is the main cause of tension between the [Jewish and Muslim] communities?"...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Tunisian Salafi activist Sheik Houssam Al-'Ayari, which aired on Al-Mayadeen TV on February 20, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Interviewer: "If a Communist candidate wins the elections and comes to power – will you ...

In an interview published February 13, 2013 by The Times of Israel, MEMRI founder and president Yigal Carmon said that he believes that the rise of Islamism following the Arab Spring is just the beginning of the process of change, pointing out that "Europe took hundreds of years"...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Swedish-Algerian TV host Yahya Abu Zakariya, which aired on Syrian TV on January 4, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Yahya Abu Zakariya: "Why do they want us to speak Hebrew? Why do they want us to sell our horses...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network (via the Internet) on February 9, 2013. Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV. Moncef Marzouki: "Everybody knows what the red lines are for the other party...

Following are excerpts from a TV show featuring Algerian journalist Khaled Omar Ben Guiga, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network on January 21, 2013: Click here to read the full report. Moderator: "Are our societies heading toward an historical change, because of the change of ...

Introduction
The attacks carried out in the name of Islam by terror organizations such as the Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda, both in Arab countries and worldwide, have prompted recurring discussion about whether and how the school curricula in the Arab world have contribu...

Introduction
In January 2015, MEMRI researched and flagged YouTube videos of support for jihadi fighters and "martyrs" and "martyrdom," to test the platform's "Promotes Terrorism" flagging feature. The test was a follow-up to MEMRI research and testing of jihad and terrorism o...

Malek Chebel, a renowned anthropologist and one of the most prominent contemporary North African intellectuals, died on November 12, 2016. Chebel, who in 2004 established the Foundation for an Enlightened Islam in France, published some 20 books on Islam, in which he addressed ma...

Introduction
On January 5, 2015, recently elected President of the Tunisian Republic Beji Caid Essebsi handed the letter of appointment to Habib Essid to form the next government in compliance with the provisions of Tunisia's Constitution. Essid has been officially appointed to f...

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. A page from the Koran Table of ContentsI) IntroductionII) Jaish-e-Muhammad's Teaching Of Jihadist Verses In Pakistani TownsIII...

The following report is a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here. Introduction Since its establishment in post-revolution Tunisia, Ansar Al-Shari'a in Tunisia (AST), the leading Salafi-jihadi or...

Introduction On January 26, 2014, Tunisia's National Constituent Assembly (ANC) approved the country's new constitution, three years after the January 14, 2011 ouster of dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. The new constitution had a tumultuous birth. The ANC, elected October 23, 20...

The Mozabite people (Ait M'zab) are Amazigh (Berbers) who live in the M'zab valley in the northern Sahara in Algeria. The community, comprising some 300,000, is indigenous to the region, but today its survival is in question. In December 2013 and January 2014, the Mozabites were ...

Introduction At the close of 2012, a tweet attributed to Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-'Arifi, a member of the Association of Muslim Clerics, in which he allegedly permitted young Muslim women to journey to Syria to have sexual relations with mujahideen fighting the Syrian regime, was...

Introduction
Tunisia is undergoing a political and economic crisis. In the words of the Tunisian economist Dr. Hedi Sraieb, "the Constituent [Assembly] is at a standstill [and] the government is in deadlock... Without a truly political solution, in other words, a compromise, t...

Introduction
August 7, 2013 marked the end of this year's Islamic month of Ramadan, during which Muslims, with few exceptions, may not eat or drink from dawn to dusk. During this Ramadan, several North African activists, from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, launched campaigns d...

Introduction During the Islamic month of Ramadan, Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink from dawn until sunset, except for those who are ill, traveling, pregnant, breastfeeding, diabetic, or menstruating. Smoking and sexual relations are also forbidden during fasting. At the en...

The following are three articles from Tunisia and Morocco analyzing both the ouster in Egypt of president and Muslim Brotherhood official Muhammad Mursi and the protests in Turkey against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist AKP. The articles discuss what lessons Tunisi...

Introduction As of this writing, clashes between security forces and Salafis are taking place in several locations across Tunisia following the plan to hold the third annual Ansar Al-Shari'a conference that was scheduled for May 19, 2013, in Al-Qayrawan.[1] The conference, organi...

Introduction Tunisian Interim President Moncef Marzouki is facing strong criticism in the country. Marzouki, nicknamed "Tartour" (in Arabic "insignificant," indicating someone who can be pushed in any direction), is accused of backing down on human rights issues in order to maint...

Introduction On February 19, 2013, Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali stepped down; his resignation followed the February 6 assassination of Tunisian secular leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid, gunned down in front of his home in the capital Tunis. Three days later, on Fe...

Introduction
On February 6, 2013, Tunisians lost one of the leaders of the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution, when Tunisian secular and leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid was gunned down in front of his home in El Menzah VI, a residential neighborhood in the capital Tunis.
B...

Introduction
On January 11, 2013, France launched a military intervention, Operation Serval, against several jihadist movements – chiefly Ansar Al-Din, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) – that had taken control o...

UN Security Council Resolution Presses ECOWAS To Speed Up Preparations For Military Intervention In Azawad
A map of Azawad. Image source: France 24
On September 17, 2012, the ECOWAS[1] foreign and defense ministers met in the capital of the Ivory Coast, Abidjan, to approv...

Introduction Now entering its sixth consecutive week, Sudan's uprising has gained considerable support; however, bringing the long rule of President 'Omar Al-Bashir to an end will be no easy task. Moreover, unlike in other countries affected by the Arab spring, where long-servin...

On June 16, 2012, protests broke out on the campus of the University of Khartoum (UoK) over the deteriorating economic situation in Sudan. In the days since, the protests have spread to neighborhoods and suburbs of Khartoum and to other cities and towns in the country, with what...

Introduction
The first report in this series (MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 848, "MNLA: The Fight For A Secular State Of Azawad," June 19, 2012, The MNLA's Fight For A Secular State Of Azawad) reviewed the declaration of independence of the State of Azawad and ...

Introduction
On April 6, 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) unilaterally seceded from Mali and declared an independent State of Azawad. The MNLA is a secular Tuareg[1] movement whose goal is the establishment of a secular state in which the right...

In an article published on June 8, 2012 in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Moroccan-Italian journalist and author Anna Mahjar-Barducci, MEMRI's research fellow for North African studies, writes that "elections in Algeria should not be hailed as a sign of democracy, as they served only...

In an article published April 27, 2012 in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Moroccan-Italian journalist and author Anna Mahjar-Barducci, who is MEMRI's research fellow for North African studies, reviewed the efforts of the Berber Tuareg rebels in Mali to secede and establish the indepen...

Introduction Lately, there has been an exchange of accusations between Rached Ghannouchi, the head of the Tunisian Al-Nahda party, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy over statements made by Ghannouchi at a Washington Institute seminar on November 30, 2011. Ghannou...

Introduction On October 23, 2011, Tunisia held the first free and democratic elections in the country's history. Nine months after the popular uprising, known as the Jasmine Revolution, which toppled a decades-long dictatorial regime, Tunisians could now experience one of the m...

On October 7, 2011, the private Tunisian satellite TV channel Nessma aired the award-winning French animated film Persepolis, which is based on Iranian-born illustrator Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel and tells of the challenges she faced growing up in Iran durin...

Introduction Jihadists and radical Islamists have been closely following the dramatic events in Tunisia which have shaken up the regime. These same circles see these events as an opportunity to promote their cause, and are taking advantage of the events to spur other Arab peoples...

Introduction In recent months, Egypt and Qatar have been engaged in a power struggle over mediation of the Darfur crisis. In September 2008, at Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's suggestion, [1] the Arab League and the African Union appointed Qatar to sponsor negotiations betwee...

Malek Chebel, a renowned anthropologist focusing on the Arab world, is one of today's prominent French-speaking North African intellectuals. In 2004, he established, in France, the Foundation for an Enlightened Islam. Chebel has published some 20 books on Islam, in which he has...

Introduction Spurred by Iran's nuclear program and the risk it could pose to their security, a growing number of Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa are seeking to develop nuclear energy, ostensibly for peaceful purposes. With rich resources at the disposal of ...

Introduction On Monday, July 14, 2008, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo issued a bill of indictment against Sudanese President 'Omar Al-Bashir for war crimes perpetrated during the Darfur conflict. Ocampo also requested that an international arres...

Introduction On May 10, 2008, members of the Darfur rebel organization called The Justice and Equality Movement, headed by Khalil Ibrahim, invaded the city of Omdurman, adjoining the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The militants reached the heart of Sudan in off-road vehicles, afte...

Introduction The Darfur region of Sudan first made headlines in February 2003 with news of massacres, rapes, mutilations, and other atrocities perpetrated by the Sudanese government and its allied armed Arab militia, the Janjaweed, against civilians in the black Arab and non-Arab...

Following several bombings earlier this year, Algeria has recently seen another series of deadly terrorist attacks. On September 6, 2007, 22 were killed and over 100 were wounded in city of Batna in eastern Algeria, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a public gathering just...

Tunisian Parliamentary VP Abdelfattah Mourou said that the Arab nation is backward, ignorant, and "oblivious to reality," comparing it to the West, which managed to overcome its hostilities after WWII and form the nucleus for the European community. This is driven by "the power o...

Booker Ngesa Omole, National Organizing Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Kenya, said during an Al-Quds Day event held in the country that "if there is a possibility... we will join [the Palestinians] in the battlefield, to fight to reclaim their motherland." Omole call...

Paris-based Tunisian philosopher Youssef Seddik, interviewed on Al-Hurra TV on June 13, said that "since the death of the Prophet Muhammad and to this day, our history has been a pack of lies." He discussed the incompatibility of the Quran with modern man-made laws, saying that t...

Algerian intellectual Dr. Rachid Benaïssa, former Education Ministry director-general, said that "Islam is returning today, and tomorrow the West will convert to Islam." Speaking on the Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel on March 29, Dr. Benaïssa, who was presented on the show as "a fo...

Tunisian poet Anis Shoshan, interviewed on Sudania 24 TV, discussed notions of citizenship and human rights, and said that while in Arab societies we are taught "to be passive, not to think, but to follow obsolete customs," there is a new generation that is educated and aware of ...

Moroccan author and researcher Abdelilah Belkziz said that contrary to the "common narrative" that the Jihadi movements were created by America and the West, these Jihadi groups are a "local product," created by our educational system and political culture, "which is based on exc...

In a recent Friday sermon in a mosque in Antioch, a neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, Somali-American Imam Ahmedulhadi Sharif criticized those who carry out terror attacks in the West, such as the October 2017 vehicular attack in Manhattan, saying that they "take innocent liv...

Moroccan journalist and writer Ahmed Assid said that "we must reach the level of openness and sincerity that enables us to say that some texts should be nullified and completely abandoned because they are religious texts that pertain to a certain context which no longer exists an...

Tunisians protested at the opening of a Holocaust exhibition at the National Library in Tunis, tearing down posters and chanting slogans such as "Free Palestine, out with the Zionists." Tunisian University Professor Habib Kazdaghli, the exhibition's organizer, said that the purpo...

Algerian historian Dr. Nasser Al-Din Saidouni said that the Arab peoples, still in a "tribal" stage, have not been able to obtain the "internal stimuli" necessary to create a true renaissance, but instead "borrow European enterprises, imagining that they would save us and make us...

The fate of Mauritanian blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir, whose death sentence for affronting the Prophet Muhammad was commuted to two years in prison after he repented, continues to inflame public sentiment. In a France 24 TV debate, which aired on November 13, Mauritanian p...

Abdelfattah Mourou, Vice-President of the Tunisian Parliament and the co-founder of the Ennahdha Party, talked about the mistakes made by the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that they did not understand that the people who rebelled in the Arab Spring did not do so in order to instate ...

During a TV debate on conspiracy theories, Algerian political analyst Reda Boudraa said that great Arab and Muslim minds were "contemplating how to dismantle the global system" and that the notion of conspiracy should be used as a strategic weapon. We should "conspire against [th...

Sudanese strategic expert Major-General Younis Mahmoud said that there is evidence in the Quran that "these Jews, these Zionists, never adhere to treaties" and that "the handiwork of the Jews and the Zionists" can be seen in today's problems. He was responding to comments made by...

Saudi Ambassador to Algeria Dr. Sami Abdullah Al-Saleh said that Hamas is a terrorist organization. In an interview dedicated almost entirely to the Qatar crisis, Ambassador Al-Saleh said that the only available option is for Qatar to accept all of demands made by Saudi Arabia an...

Following the vehicular attack outside a London mosque on June 19, Egyptian TV host Youssef Al-Husseini said: "Why do they hate us?! If they didn't, there would be something mentally wrong with them." Claiming that the Muslims have contributed nothing to the West except slaughter...

In a February 10 Al-Jazeera interview, former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki tackled the root causes of backwardness in Arab society, saying that what was needed was "an ideological revolution before a political one" in order to abandon the mindset of tribalism, which viewed ...